Visiting with the Steve Grissinger family on Christmas Eve were Buzz and Bea Covert, Gordon, Donna, James and Kaylee Locke, and Ramon and Tammy Martin. Christmas Day visitors included Norm and Janet Sipes and puppies and Travis and Angela Madden. Other visitors this week included Edsel Hamman, Dan and Carol Jenakovich, and Brent Carlson.

Norm and Janet Sipes celebrated Christmas with Fred and Sue Fleming and family on Christmas Day.

Hustontown Area Volunteer Fire Co. will hold shooting matches on Saturdays beginning at 1 p.m. Shells will be provided. The fire company would like to thank everyone for their support this past year.

After 20-plus years of writing the Maddensville Mailbox, I find it hard to close the column with just a simple goodbye. Over the years many events that have happened in our small town and surrounding areas have made the news. Births, deaths, graduations, marriages and so many other things that didn’t seem important to anyone but those that lived here, made the column if someone let me know. Sadly, we’ve lost old friends and made many new friends and even had a few folks get mad seeing their names in the paper. Other folks wanted to be mentioned in the paper so their relatives away from here knew what they were doing. The column gave me the ability to be a better listener because sometimes you picked up news even when the speaker didn’t know they were revealing it.

Pets, critters, mushrooms, bears and flying squirrels also made the column along with weather and mishaps. Achievements, disappointments and even some comedy made the news now and then. Over the years, God has certainly blessed us all and Maddensville with some mighty interesting characters.

I would like to thank Bea Covert for her encouragement and everyone who gave me news to put in the column. Also, thanks to those I wrote about that were surprised to read about themselves and to the faithful readers over the years. Thank you to the newspapers that published the Maddensville Mailbox even when I missed their deadlines. Most of all I would like to thank Steve, Terri and Tammy for letting me continue to write about them, especially when the news was slow. They never knew what they might read about themselves when the paper arrived. When I started writing, our daughters, Terri and Tammy, were just joining 4-H and now they are both married and we have our first grandchild on the way.

The first year the column was handwritten or typed on a sheet of notebook paper and hand delivered or mailed to the newspaper office; next came the use of a fax machine that saved a trip to deliver; then the floppy disk, CDs and finally e-mail. What a difference 20 years has made! We are all so blessed with change even if we fail to be thankful.

If there is anyone interested in doing the column please let us know; there is still more news out there to report. Thank you again for everything.